Biventricular pacing has proven to be an effective therapy for treating patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). CHF is a condition in which a weakened heart cannot pump enough blood to body organs. Heart failure may affect either the right side, left side, or both sides of the heart. As pumping action is lost, blood may back up into other areas of the body, including the liver, gastrointestinal tract, and extremities (right-sided heart failure), or the lungs (left-sided heart failure). Structural or functional causes of heart failure include high blood pressure (hypertension), valvular heart disease, congenital heart diseases, cardiomyopathy, heart tumor, and other heart diseases. Precipitating factors include infections with high fever or complicated infections, use of negative inotropic drugs (such as beta-blockers and calcium channel blocker), anemia, irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias), hyperthyroidism, and kidney disease.
Unfortunately, when fitting a patient with an implantable pacing device, it can be difficult to pass a left-side lead into the coronary sinus vein, or the smaller final destination veins, or keep it in stable position. Accordingly, there is a need for alternative techniques of placing a pacing stimulus on the left side of the heart.